Oliver Church and Emma Songeon might be poster children for how to shop consciously in 2022.
The Paris-based creative duo — one a fashion designer, the other a vintage dealer — live and work by a set of values that chimes with a 'buy less, choose well' mentality — setting a thoroughly modern and considered blueprint for everyday living.
Oliver, who is originally from Auckland, worked at Garbstore in London and Casey Casey in Paris before launching his own brand, Singular Garments, in 2020. His designs — mostly shirts and jackets — lean towards the practical and durable, with a distinctly French pastoral air.
He has an archive of old clothes that he uses as references, usually "very functional pieces, like military or workwear that I've held on to, or sometimes tailoring that doesn't fit me, but that has nice detail".
Each element of Oliver's clothes is made by his own hand, from cutting the fabric to hand-sewing the buttonholes. "A lot of my ideas come to me while I'm on the sewing machine — I often take a very physical approach to making clothes."
That includes patch-pocket jackets or simple collared shirts, which typically take up to 10 hours each to make, and which he sometimes embroiders with flora and fauna.
The most unique aspect to Oliver's designs, though, are his fabrics, using mostly vintage and antique cottons and linens, often between 50 and 150 years old, which are sourced from markets around Paris.
"All the companies I've worked for, they were always trying to make new things look old, developing fabrics based on old uniform materials, or washing them 100 times to make them look slightly weathered," says Oliver.
"But in France, you can find beautiful old fabrics, either deadstock or in used condition, that don't need anything done to them. And the reason these aren't used more widely is because they're not suitable to any kind of industrialisation — [brands] would have to accept too many faults, and everything has to be standardised. But that's what I like about them."
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Advertise with NZME.Emma, who is originally from the south of France, trained as a lawyer and worked at Microsoft before deciding to leave her corporate job to focus on her second-hand clothing business, Em Archives, full time.
"I started thrifting at university as a hobby, mainly for myself, because I was interested in vintage and I didn't have a lot of budget. And then I saw a growing interest in second-hand and sustainable consumption in general, so I started selling what I was finding," says Emma.
The second-hand clothes Emma sells, both on her website and in her new bricks-and-mortar store in the 19th arrondissement, are all hand-selected by her, unearthed in car-boot sales and charity shops around Paris, as well as on eBay.
"Sourcing takes up the majority of my work time, and it's very varied — there's not one magic stash where you find all the good, cheap stuff."
Generally, Emma is looking for quality — in terms of the fabric, the buttons and the finishings — and natural materials, with the exception of high-quality synthetics that serve a specific purpose (such as Issey Miyake's pleated polyester).
She also considers where the garments originate, favouring those made in France or Italy, "because for me it's more of a guarantee that it's a long-lasting piece".
Her other criterion is style, ensuring that everything she sells is in line with a refined, minimalist aesthetic. "I try to offer pieces that I consider to be timeless or wardrobe essentials, and then I try to mix in others with a more intricate or special design, keeping in mind what looks modern and relevant today."
Her selection includes relaxed suits and skirts from 90s-era Jil Sander, vintage Dior cotton shirts, 70s-era Rive Gauche from Yves Saint Laurent and handbags by Prada and Miu Miu. Emma's most triumphant find is a rare Hermès chiffon trench coat from spring/summer 1999, when Martin Margiela was the creative director.
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Advertise with NZME."Hermès is incredibly hard to find in general, so it was really lucky for me to get it, and I was a bit sad when I sent it to the customer [who bought it]."
To identify the pieces, Emma trawls through videos and imagery of runway shows, and relies on her years of expertise for distinguishing certain label styles and fabrications. This also helps her identify and avoid fakes.
"What can happen is people taking a real label off a piece and sewing it on another — so being able to distinguish between a real and a fake comes down to your knowledge of the brand's style, knowing what the care label should look like, looking at the finishing of the piece and how the label is placed," Emma adds.
While designer brands are important to her business, Em Archives also stocks less expensive, quality second-hand clothes, such as vintage cashmere or Levi's denim.
"I do like designer pieces, for the history of the brands and the imagery that comes with them, but for me, it's not all about the name, because you can have some really fabulous pieces from what I call anonymous brands, too — some that no longer exist, or smaller designers, or even random High Street names that used to be really well-made."
Well-made, durable and timeless: these values form the backbone of both Emma and Oliver's businesses, and also help them combat — even in a small way — some of the issues that come with working in the fashion industry, which is valued at US$3 trillion globally today and is estimated to account for between two and 10 per cent of the world's greenhouse-gas emissions.
Mending and maintaining clothes is important, too. "I'm able to do a lot of repair work for Emma, which feels good, instead of just making new things," says Oliver, "whether that be a repair that's completely invisible to the customer, or something more obvious, it doesn't take away value from the piece."
Oliver is adamant that, with all these measures in place, his business is more sustainable than most — and his clothes are designed to last a lifetime. "I still wear pieces that I made, with the same ideas, 10 years ago," he adds.
"I'm also not having fabrics made for me, and I don't have intentions to turn my brand into a big business, or to have a fashion empire. I don't see the point in producing a lot of bad clothes. You could set up a very green business, but then still make a million pieces in a year, and I don't know how sustainable that is."
Adds Emma: "I think today, there's a lot of 'sustainable' fashion on offer, but it's sugar-coated in marketing. I think what we need to communicate is that being truly sustainable is buying less, using what you already own, caring for what you already own, and if you do need to buy something new, buying second-hand or from smaller, truly sustainable brands," says Emma. "I always ask my customers, are you sure you're going to wear this?"
These principled beliefs, whether in regards to fashion or any other day-to-day decisions, certainly go some way to achieving a more sustainable future.
“I declutter regularly, so I always think twice about accumulating new things in our home,” adds Emma. “Buying less is something that I try to apply to my life in general.”
